


Black Silk

by LesBeLexa



Category: The 100 (TV), clexa - Fandom
Genre: Amused Octavia, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Lesbian Sex, Mischievous Raven, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Sex, Sweet Sin, Tribbing, clueless clarke, sweet Lexa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 23:08:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8509135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesBeLexa/pseuds/LesBeLexa
Summary: Clarke Griffin has never had an orgasm, and until she meets Lexa Woods she never considered that was a problem. But everything she knows is soon turned on its head beneath black silk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Update: I realize it's been awhile, but I couldn't forget that people didn't feel as though the work should be over. That there was more. And they were absolutely right. I've actually been done with it for awhile, but only now do I feel like I'm finally ready to release the edit to the world. Hope you guys that read it the first time enjoy the additions, and new readers, I hope you simply enjoy it.

I shouldn’t be here…. This is what I think to myself the entire time I’m sitting in the lavish and yet somehow minimalist receiving room, pale hands sliding over each other as if to warm the cool flesh.

 

Cool flesh that is also clammy with nervous perspiration.

 

This hadn’t been my idea. I, Clarke Griffin, do not do things like this. Whatever _this_ is. I am responsible. I don’t do anything out of the norm. And yet, despite all the misgivings, doubts, and turning around about five times, I’m here. Waiting. For the unknown. It fills me with a sense of giddiness and exhilaration while my heart pounds loudly in my chest. I wonder if it can be heard by anyone, or if it’s just my own ears.

 

When the door opens, I almost jump as if I’ve been doing something wrong… As if I’m guilty, though of what, I’m not sure. Azure eyes lift to see the image of a statuesque brunette with eyes like soft glowing emeralds. And my heart seems to suddenly stop, breath arrested as I stare dumbly. Before this, she’d only been a name. Two lonely syllables that danced elegantly on the tongue, but provoked an even stronger enigma.

 

Lexa…

 

Her body is sheathed in a simple outfit of black pants, belted at the waist, and a black silk shirt with buttons left undone, drawing the eye to the slender throat, beautiful tanned skin and a collar bone I long to kiss. The thought takes me aback, as much as the slightest upturn of her full lips, as if she knows it. As if she knows everything.

 

“Clarke?” she asks, brow arching as if the question was more for my benefit than hers. And it is a benefit. The one syllable sounds like the most sensual music from her lips, with the ‘k’ accentuated in a way I can feel between my thighs. In the pleasurable pulse that begins, clit throbbing for sensation.

 

I’m aroused…. This is new.

 

That’s why I’m here. There’s something broken in me. Something that does not allow me to feel pleasure, to know it in that intimate way. It’s an unattainable desire. I’ve had sex. With my boyfriend. And I pretend. Pretend to experience the rapture that seems to come over him. I thought… perhaps it was normal. Not to feel what he feels…. Until my friends, Raven and Octavia discovered it.

 

**“You’ve never had the big O?” Raven had asked - far too loudly- while we were at dinner.**

 

**I’d barely had time to answer before Octavia exclaimed, “You’ve at least given yourself one.”**

 

**I could only shift awkwardly, bringing my glass of Pinot to my lips as I shook my head in a barely perceptible refusal of her hope... Raven had looked mortified, while Octavia just looked utterly disbelieving.**

 

**“Jesus Christ….”**

 

**“Okay, I didn’t tell you that to be judged.”**

 

**Raven held up her hands, “I am so not judging.”**

 

**“This is a completely judge free space,” Octavia quickly agreed. “It’s just… well this explains a lot.”**

 

**Try as I might, I could feel myself growing defensive, cheeks warm with embarrassment as I began to wish I hadn’t said anything at all, “What do you mean it explains a lot?”**

 

**Raven’s eyes flickered to Octavia’s, “Well… it explains why you’re so uptight all the time.”**

 

**“I am not uptight!”**

 

**“Oh you definitely are. You’re wound so tight that ninety percent of the time, you look like you’re ready to snap.”**

 

**As much as I had wanted to deny it, I knew they were probably right. I blamed the stress of my internship, my often strained relationship with my mother, everything except the obvious. There was no release of tension. At first they tried recommending things. Hot baths, relaxation techniques, erotic massages with Finn, even herbal remedies. But after two months with no results, Raven had finally called me with a solution she was sure would work.**

 

**Black Silk…**

 

**She’d heard good reviews that the “therapy” was excellent, no matter what sexual problem one possessed. And my particular problem was more common than I’d realized. Still, I was reluctant. The “therapy” descriptions were vague and unconventional.**

 

**“It’s basically prostitution,” I’d mumbled as I explored the website.**

 

**“No it isn’t. It’s New Age therapy.”**

 

**“Raven they all but have a disclaimer stating one must be comfortable with nudity and sign a clause.”**

 

**“Okay, but you’re not paying for sex, you’re paying for help. To unlock the body’s secrets or some shit... Look, you’re going, okay? I’ve already made the appointment, and paid for the session. And there are no refunds. Are you really going to make me waste my money?”**

 

**She’d known that was the only thing that would make me complicit in the end.**

 

And now I’m rising, with a fluttering in my stomach and a rising ache between my thighs as arousal begins to dampen the lace of boy shorts I wear beneath a simple white dress. Lexa watches me, her gaze sweeping the length of my form to take me in, and though she says nothing, her eyes darken, the emerald thinning to onyx as her pupils dilate. Even the simplicity of the dress, generous curves are impossible to hide and the brunette’s gaze lingers longer on the swells of my breasts.

 

But then her eyes are on mine, piercing, penetrating, and I stammer as I realize she’s still waiting for me to say something. Anything.

 

Swallowing thickly, I clear my throat, “Um, Yes-- I’m Clarke.”

 

She smiles and steps aside to allow me to entry, and I hesitate for only a moment before I’m moving forward. When I pass her, I feel the heat of her gaze and smell the fragrance of something exotic and alluring on her skin. Masculine yet so enticingly feminine. And then my attention is drawn to the room. It’s expansive, decorated in lush and elegant patters, dark golds and reds. The windows are shaded, darkening the space to allow the ambience of what seems like hundreds of candles. There’s a sitting area, but my eyes fall on the four poster bed where a sheer canopy drops.

 

I nearly jump when Lexa passes me, her stride proud, sensual, and commanding and drawing the eye to the sway of her hips and an ass that women would kill for.

  
“Would you like a drink?” She asks, in that voice of soft husk and seduction.

 

“I….Um….No, no thank you,” I reply, which is a lie. All I want right now is a shot of liquid courage…. Or five.

 

As if able to hear my thoughts once again, Lexa turned to me, hands holding two glasses of what I assume is Bourbon. Her expression tells me she won’t take no for an answer, so I take the glass, a sheet of tingling warmth racing through me as her fingers brushed against mine. She feels it too. The charge between us. It seems to steal her breath, and I quickly bring the glass to my lips as I turn to take a seat on the plush cushions of the loveseat.

 

Lexa settles opposite of me, and I notice that soft music plays. Sensual, rhythmic. Filling the space of silence.

 

“You didn’t book this session did you?” Her voice curls around me with the question, curiosity in her gaze as she smiles warmly.

 

Laughing lightly, I tilt my head,” Am I that obvious?”

 

“No. You just seem like a woman who would rather not find herself sitting in front of me. So… tell me what the problem is.”

 

I blink in surprise, unprepared for the frankness of either her statement, or the question.

 

“I---- That wasn’t explained in the email?”

 

Those full lips quirk upwards once more, her features darkening into an impish smirk, “Yes, but it also stated other things that upon meeting you, I’m guessing aren’t true. Like Daddy kinks, spanking, anal beads.”

 

I literally choke on the amber liquid, and the pleasant burn becomes nearly scalding as I attempt to recover.  Fucking Raven.

 

“That’s what I thought…. Not that it’s all that unusual. It just doesn’t seem very…you.”

 

“I would never…” I finally manage to get out.

Lexa is amused. It’s obvious in the wolfish smile that doesn’t fade as she takes a sip from her own glass, “So once again I ask, why are you here?”

 

Clearing my throat, I shift in my seat, “I---” Embarrassment flushes my cheeks. I suppose I should have known we’d have to talk about it, but knowing it and saying it aloud are two completely different things. My words seem captured on my tongue, silent pleas to understand… to know myself. Yet I don’t even know where to begin. And I’m _supposed_ to know, aren’t I?

 

And there’s that fear, within all of the confusion. What if I can’t be fixed?

 

Suddenly I stand, the movement quick and abrupt as I set my glass down, “I can’t do this.”

 

Her beautiful features contort into a frown as she rises as well, “Clarke.”

 

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time and mine… I just…. I have to go.”

 

Slender fingers grab hold of my wrist, stopping me in my tracks. But she doesn’t say anything... Not immediately. She just moves, silently, slowly, to stand behind me so that I feel the warmth of her body through her clothing. Silk that brushes erotically against my bare skin as it sends shivers cascading down my spine. And I can’t move, even if I wanted to as she lowers her head to brush her lips against my ear, and the whisper of her breath leaves me stranded without air. My head falls back to rest against her shoulder and I forget that I’m embarrassed, that I have a boyfriend, that this is wrong, and that I’m not even a lesbian, but the barest touch from this woman sets my body on fire, skin aglow with the warmth of desire that burns within.

 

“Relax,” she whispers. “We don’t have to talk.”

 

Relax…. The word echoes inside my head as she grasps my hips to pull me firmly against her, and I feel her curves meld against mine in the most erotic way. And the ache I felt returns with a vengeance, clit throbbing as her fingers skim over my arms, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

 

I want her…

 

The realization should startle me as her hands slowly, gently coax me into submission. Patient yet insistent, touching me everywhere and yet nowhere near the heavy weight of breasts that ache suddenly for touch, or the apex of my thighs where heat stirs like never before. The air grows thick with palpable tension, silent pleas, hidden truths, and a need that is greedy, vicious, and dangerous.

 

“Do you want me to make you cum, Clarke? Do you want to know what pleasure is? I can show you,” she whispers, in a voice that’s silken and yet rough with the grate of arousal.

 

A low moan sounds in my throat, breaths growing harsh as I push back against her, hips winding sensuously and I revel in the sharp intake of her breath. And then her hands are finally on my breasts, cupping, and kneading them through the cotton of my dress, but she may as well have stripped me because that contact alone makes me dizzy and my legs grow weak. Her touch is almost possessive now and it may turn me on more just hearing how aroused she is as well as feeling her hips undulate against the generous swells of my ass as if seeking friction.

 

I’m no longer me as I turn to face her, surprising her as much as myself as I grab hold of her face, my lips meeting hers heatedly. Soft, plush, urgent, as she pulls me back with her to the loveseat, too impatient to walk the distance to the bed as our hands tug and tear at each other’s clothing in haste to be rid of them.

 

It’s never like this with Finn. Even from the first time, it’s been awkward, bumbling. A quick satisfaction of his needs that has little foreplay, and zero gratification for me. Until now I hadn’t minded. You can’t truly miss what you’ve never had. Discomfort and a few quick thrusts as he grunts like it’s a huge effort before he empties himself, no matter the position. That is all I’ve known.

 

But this...

 

The moment she falls back onto the bed, I straddle her lap. My dress is now somewhere on the floor, leaving me in only my bra and panties, but I don’t have the time to be self-conscious about one too many bags of chips that I wear on my hips. Her eyes devour me hungrily before her mouth follows suit, deft fingers unclasping my bra and her shirt is open, but still on, belt undone.

 

While her tongue stroking against mine is distracting, I’m desperate to feel and explore. So I do…

 

She’s toned lines and curves that I revel in, travel with fingers, eyes, and tongue. A song with beautiful melodies that rise from the slender column of her throat and I find a spot there, just above her pulse that makes her shudder, throatily hum her approval as her head tilts further back to allow me access. And as she arches, small but full breasts to fill my eager hands, the nipples taut peaks, I wonder if there is any woman more beautiful than she… and how her body seems to speak to me in a language only we understand.

 

Finally, when we’re both free of our clothing, I revel in her skin, softer than the black silk beneath us. Smooth, tanned, and unblemished, but in a move so quick I have no time to react, the lithe brunette has me on my back and I gasp as her mouth closes around a nipple, sending nerve endings into a frenzy. She holds fast, her tongue swirling, flicking as she draws it roughly into her mouth. Her hands explore, kneading, caressing, and I can scarcely remain still as I entangle fingers in the thick tresses of her hair.

 

Her fingers find the swollen heat of my sex, gliding teasingly, skillfully over the sensitive bundle of nerves to draw a cry of pleasure from my lips before they enter me. One, two, three, beginning to slowly stroke the fires of my passion as she gives attention to my left breast, Each thrust leaves me seeing stars as I draw her in deeper, hips rolling and increasing the rise of pleasure that envelops and consumes me. The intensity is almost too much. Fingers thread through the thick cascade of her hair, as lights dance in my vision, and my breaths come quickly in shallow gasps for air.

 

She takes her time, and patience and a strange kind of tenderness I cannot explain keep her movements controlled, yet fluid. Somehow I know she’s allowing my body to tell her what it wants, what it needs. And it seems so beautiful...and intimate. As if her soul has somehow touched mine, and is pulling it close, protectively, desperate to give everything without expectation of anything. This is what I have craved. Not only the pleasure of release, the hurling of my mind and soul from that precipice of a mountain’s cliff as I fall into oblivion without fear, but the steps it takes to climb that mountain. To explore and embrace the beauty of its grandeur. Dance with the frantic rhythm of my pulse among its meadows and know what it is to be one -not with someone- with myself. The transcendence of self and shedding of all the baggage. And in the climb, in the soaring of ecstasy that seems ready to peak and crumble, I feel tears stinging my eyes.

 

I allow them to fall as I do…

 

Down, down, descending into a bliss unlike any other…

 

There is a sound that I don’t realize is my own cry until Lexa’s mouth covers mine, her breaths my breaths as she takes me over again, and again until I can’t seem to bear it. With her fingers, her mouth, her body as she straddles me, and for the first time I feel her heat, the evidence of her pleasure in this. Our gasps sound as one as flesh meets flesh and we meld together, and her hips move, slowly at first. Sensual undulations as her head falls back, power restrained by sheer force of will and a desire to show me all that there can be before she covers me, and I feel every inch of skin that is slick with perspiration, with need, a building fire between us that rages out of both our controls.

 

“This is pleasure, Clarke…” she whispers against my ear, her breaths making her voice raspy, rich with dark sensuality, a winding spell that holds me.

 

I can smell the fragrance of her, and me, feel her heart beat against her breast as the pulse of her hips quickens, becoming a near frantic drive to chase the high that I now know will follow, and hear the pant of her breaths against my ear as she holds me closer still, her swollen clit repeatedly passing over mine, friction, heat, wet, fire, and air, all spinning and spiraling until there is an explosion of color and the dam breaks, allowing the flood of pleasure to overtake us, leaving us shaking and struggling for air.

 

Neither of us moves for what seems like moments, but I no longer know what time is, so I’m not sure my supposition is reliable. Every part of my body feels lithe and liquid, completely drained of all its tensions and where I expect to feel guilt or something akin to regret… I don’t. I feel only relief and gratitude, fingertips grazing along the spine of the woman who has given me the impossible.

 

“Thank you,” I whisper, the sound almost tentative though I no longer feel shy.

 

For a moment she doesn’t move and I wonder if she heard me at all, until she moves to prop herself up on one elbow and look down at me with a soft smile, features blooming with afterglow and made all the more breathtakingly beautiful, “You don’t have to thank me.”

 

“I do--” I begin, but her fingertips gently press against my lips as she arches a brow.

 

“No. You don’t,” she says, more firmly in a voice that leaves no room for argument. Her fingertips move from my lips to my jawline, through the damp strands of my hair and when she speaks, the smile is in her eyes this time, impish and delighted. “Besides… I have more to show you.”

 

                                   ________________________________________

 

Hours later, she walks me to my car. The sun has begun to set and it casts a warm glow over the landscape, as splashes of color fill the sky like a painting. She looks up at it as walk in comfortable silence, until we reach it, waiting until I unlock it before opening the door for me.

 

This is the part I’m uncertain of. Where I go from here. As if Lexa can read it in my expression, or perhaps she really can read my mind after all, she tilts her head and steps closer, reaching up to caress my skin, leaving tingling heat in the wake of her touch.

 

“I’m going to break a lot of rules right now and tell you that I want to see you again. That I _will_ see you again.”

 

My stomach flutters pleasantly, and my pulse picks up, but I force myself to say what I should, “I have work tomorrow, and I have a boyfriend. To be honest, I shouldn’t even--”

 

She doesn’t allow me to continue, capturing my lips as she pulls me close, my body caged between her and the car. Her lips are insistent, claiming, possessing, as her tongue heatedly strokes mine and I can feel her there, between my thighs as an ache of longing builds. When she finally pulls away, I’m flushed and breathless again, needy in a way that will take some getting used to.

 

“You know you won’t stay with him now. Not when you won’t be able to get me out of your head.” there isn’t a trace of doubt in her voice as she slips a card into my hand with her cell number written in elegant script along the back. “I won’t be able to get you out of mine either.”

 

I can’t refuse. I’ve already decided to break it off with Finn. I can never go back to what was, after this.

 

“I’ll think about it.”

 

Her hands palm my ass as she nips at my ear, and damnit if my eyes don’t roll back. A gasp bleeds into a moan and she chuckles huskily as a breeze caresses a chestnut strand of her hair against her cheek.

 

“Fine,” I concede.

 

“Good,” her smile is triumphant as she helps me into the car.

 

At a stoplight, I check my phone and laugh when I see several missed calls from Raven and Octavia. Pressing return call, I continued driving, smiling when Raven’s voice fills my car.

 

“Oh my freaking god, where the hell have you been? Did you do it?”

 

I smirk, “Yep, I did it.”

 

“You bitch! You did not! Wait...no...Your voice. Holy shit, you did it. Octavia! Griffin is finally a woman! Okay, now you have to tell us everything. Every. Single. Kinky. Detail.”

 

Rolling my eyes, I relay what I can about what happened. I have no idea where this will go, or what will happen between Lexa and me, but I do know that there will always be a fondness within me for black silk.

 

__________________________________###_________________________________________The clock ticking on the wall seems unbearably loud in the silence that is thick and deafening in its own way. Pressing down. Smothering. While all the same, the clock ticks and tocks like a pounding drum of warning and the pulse of misery that is clouding Finn’s face.

 

I’ve avoided this for two days, coward that I am. Two days smiling and carefully maneuvering out of embraces and longing kisses. Two days caressing the card that holds Lexa’s name and number. Two days remembering every detail of the hours we spent together.

 

Two days knowing I would have to break the heart of the man who loves me far more than I could ever love him.

He was a first for me. First love, first kiss, first anything in a world I’d spent so long thinking of the past and the future, completely neglecting myself and my happiness in the present. But like all firsts, he was never really meant to be the last, the only. At least not for me.

 

That didn’t make the decision any easier.

 

**You’re going to have to have to do it. You’ll be miserable otherwise,” Raven had told me as she’d teased over the surface of my kitchen island, watching me chop vegetables.**

**For once her expression wasn’t teasing, nor was her tone. She understood the gravity of the situation, why I was so hesitant, why I didn’t want to just drop this on Finn out of the blue, though I’d probably been working my way to this point for far longer than I’d ever cared to admit, even to myself.**

**I inhaled, movements ceasing as I stared at the multiple colors of the vegetables on the cutting board like I would somehow find revelation in them. A solution for which there wasn’t one.**

**“It won’t be easy for him.”**

**“Yeah, and it won’t be easy for you to keep doing this. And it sure as hell isn’t fair to either one of you. Sometimes people just don’t work, no matter how much they might want to or think they’re supposed to.”**

**My eyes finally met hers and I knew that more than anyone she understood her own words. Finn had been her first love, too. Not that I’d known that, or her when I’d met him. I suppose in a way I was now where he’d been, and she was in his shoes.**

**If that wasn’t screwed up I didn’t know what was.**

**“I know, but it’s not just that…” I began.**

**It was considerably easier to fixate on that problem than the other blaringly obvious issue. But Raven hadn’t become my best friend against all odds without learning to know my mind and thoughts almost better than I did.**

**Sighing, she pushed away from the island to round it, moving to my side with a fluid grace that grace no tell of the limp she’d acquired in an accident two years prior before she was discharged.**

**Her voice was low and as soothing to the tumult of my mind as her hand was when she brushed my hair away from my face.**

**“Listen, Princess. This might come as a shock to you, Almighty Control Freak, but you can’t help what you feel, or who you feel it for. I mean, who knows, maybe it’s just this Lexa. Doesn’t mean you’re gay or bi or whatever. It just is. Love is just love. Sure, it’s scary as hell, but it just is. Stop overthinking it and stop using Finn as a reason not to just—see what happens.”**

So, here I am. Here we are. Sitting in the little diner we’d met in during a rainstorm when we’d seemed so young and rebellious. Before life had ever really touched either of us.

 

He’s in his uniform, dark eyes haunted even more than usual. Army fatigue in every sense of the word. And his food is untouched. He hasn’t even picked up his fork. I’m in my scrubs after a twelve hour shift, cold fingers clinging to the heat of the coffee mug. Maybe I should have waited for a better time, but I tried to be honest with myself.

 

There is never a good time to snap a tether that is already beginning to fray.

 

Finn is leaving. Tonight. A tour overseas to fight a war that shouldn’t even be. To be deep in a world I cannot even imagine, but has changed and altered him. He’s so fragile and I’m only shattering him more, but it’s better to do it now than to allow him the illusion I will be there when he returns.

 

Or, as he always adds darkly, if he returns.

 

He’s seen too much death, been on the either side of the gun. But it’s the children and women he can’t ever forget. Their eyes and their faces haunt him even when he sleeps. I’ve helped him chase those demons so many times that in a way, I guess they’re mine now too.

 

We sit here, with our demons, with our sadness and the ticking clock while the rest of the world seems to stand still. Frozen. He still hasn’t spoken, and I’m afraid to. Afraid that I’ve said too much already and have no right whatsoever to say anything more.

 

When he does finally say something, it seems so loud that I hear his voice echoing, but he’s barely raised it above a murmur.

 

“You know, I’ve felt it. How different you were. But… I thought it was me.”

 

“It’s not,” I start to say, to explain, to offer some sort of assurance, but he interjects.

 

“Don’t say it isn’t, because it is. After everything we’ve faced together… I know I’m not the same, but--“

 

“I’m not the same either, Finn.” I swallow thickly, feeling emotion well as I finally release the mug to reach for his hands.

 

I expect him to pull away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he holds onto me as tightly as I hold onto him. As if by grasping each other we can somehow hold ourselves together.

 

“We’ve both changed and I love you. I love you and I will always be here for you. Just—not like this. I’m sorry.”

 

The tears I swore I wouldn’t shed, come. They sting, blur, blind, and I cannot stop them. I cannot control them, this, or anything.

 

It’s amazing how blindness can create so much startling clarity.

 

“I’m sorry too.”

 

When we leave, it’s an unceremonious parting. He doesn’t let me drive him to base or wait to see him off. I have driven a blade through him, rupturing the life within. I know it when he pulls away from our last embrace. I know there will be no making peace and being friends that look back on this moment as just another one of those things.

 

I know, somehow, that this is the end of Finn Collins. The last I will ever see of him, even before I get the call several weeks later that his fight is over.

     ________________________________###______________________________________ 

After everything it didn’t seem right to call Lexa. To pursue whatever it was that we could be. I knew nothing about her or her me, and eventually I was able to chalk it up to just one of those moments that changes you. I kept her card, but didn’t call.

 

I could feel that Raven wanted to talk some sense into me, but we were both still grieving. I was awash with it. And maybe in some ways, as I always did, I blamed myself.

 

Finn had wanted that end. He was already dead long before he was taken as a P.O.W. Long before his life was taken, I had killed him. I carried that knowledge like a weight.

 

But fate has a funny way of giving us just what we need when we need it most.

 

The E.R is a tumultuous storm of activity. It seems everyone has some sort of travesty happen at the end of the week like a hopelessly terrible omen. But it is just what I need. To focus on others instead of my own mind and fears.

 

It’s almost midnight when I see that familiar and yet somehow still strange figure pacing in one of the waiting rooms. I don’t know what made me glance there, or how I know it’s her, but I know.

 

For a moment I am frozen, suspended in time, unable to even blink as I ponder what to do. First, I wonder if she’s okay, if she or someone she cares about is hurt. Then I consider –rather vainly and hopefully- that she has been trying to find me. Lastly, comes the memory, the guilt, the sadness, and when I swallow, it feels as if there’s a lump in my throat while I simultaneously remember the way we fit together, the way she smelled…tasted.

 

Too late I realize that I’ve been staring while my heart pounds painfully in my chest, stuck in a strange sort of limbo as the world speeds past. And then she’s turning, as if she can somehow feel me. As if she’s searching too to find that glimmer of my aura that has stayed with her since that day.

 

Lexa…

 

Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail that swishes as she turns her head, wavy tresses resting momentarily over her shoulder as her emerald eyes search until they finally land on me and the slender palms that she has been tubbing together, still.

 

“Clarke?”

 

There are a thousand questions, declarations, accusations, and emotions, in that one name. That one syllable that seems to roll off of her tongue like honey and a whispered prayer.

 

And while I want to, I know I can’t just walk away.

                                                                            ****

We sit outside of someone’s room in the more quiet area of the hospital, far away from the din of emergency. The woman, I learn, is her older sister Anya. Adoptive sisters, though Lexa clearly loves her with love far thicker than that of blood.

 

It’s in the way she gets up now and again to go into the room. Check on her. The reverence of her whispers.

 

She’s in a simple ensemble of distressed jeans and a white tee that’s big on her, but in a way she still manages to make fashionable. A far cry from the elegant black she was wearing when we met.

 

That does nothing at all to quell the force of her presence.

 

I’m aware of her as we sit side by side, deliberately leaving an inch or two between us. Aware of her smell, that’s distinctly masculine and feminine, aware of the effect her voice still has on me and aware that we still haven’t talked about why I didn’t call.

 

Why it’s been two months and I haven’t sent so much as a text.

 

It doesn’t seem like the right time. Or like it’s not important now. The window of opportunity has passed.

 

“What happened?” I finally ask, my voice low and husky.

 

I hadn’t thought to before. She’d only said that her sister had been shot and she’d had no idea what was going on in her surgery. I’d done my best to calm her and get as much information about Anya’s status as I could.  


“Wrong place, wrong time. She’s a mentor at this um, this place downtown. Some guy’s asshole brother had issues with this kid. Anya wasn’t even supposed to be there,” she replies quietly, concluding with an exhale as her hands scrub over her face.

 

I nod and look away, staring at the wall as I say what I’ve said so many times. Automatic response mechanism.

 

“She’s going to be okay. The surgery went well, and—“

 

“You didn’t call,” she interrupts.

 

The three words are so unexpected and so blunt that I feel as though I’ve been slapped. There are so many ways I can handle this, but in the dim light of the corridor with only the beeping of machinery and occasional pages to a doctor or nurse, I simply respond honestly, though indirectly.

 

“I wanted to.”

 

“Wanting to isn’t the same as doing, Clarke.”

 

It isn’t a judgement, nor is it bitter. It isn’t even angry. The words simply are. Truth laid bare beneath harsh lighting. Forcing me to confront it.

 

“I broke up with my boyfriend, and—I wanted to call you. But it wasn’t that simple.”

 

I wait for her to tell me that nothing is ever that simple, but she says nothing, only staring at the wall too, waiting for me to continue.

 

“We had a complicated history and it wasn’t an easy parting. I wasn’t sure if it was right to—and then he was killed.”

 

My voice breaks on the last word and I swallow, allowing my head to fall back in hopes it will stop the threat of tears. Once more there is only silence, but it doesn’t last long.

 

“I lost someone special to me too. Her name was Costia.”

 

Lexa’s words, the cadence as she seems to draw the memory from a place of concealment where it’s been locked away for far too long, surprise me. Distant, shackled, but no less painful.

 

“I’m sorry,” I reply, though somehow that seems ridiculous.

 

“I thought I would never get over the pain, but I did.”

 

Turning my head, I take in the slope of her nose, the chiseled cut of her jawline, full lips, and the ripple of her throat as she swallows. All the little details. And I realize just how much I missed that first time, made all the more clear by this confidence she’s placing in me now.

 

“How?”

 

“By recognizing it for what it is,” she says as she meets my gaze, her voice full of quiet conviction. “Weakness.”

 

I frown, features etched in confusion, “What is? Love?”

 

She nods, her eyes searching mine.

 

“So you just stopped caring? For everyone?”

 

“Not everyone, but there was a reason you met me at a place like Black Silk, Clarke. You had your reasons for being there, and I had my reasons for working there.”

 

She allows that to sink in, and I am the first to look away. Partly in guilt that it had never even occurred to me to care about why she may have worked there. What she may have been trying to escape or forget. Partly, because her occupation was not something I’d even worried about in my list of reasons why I didn’t and couldn’t pursue anything with her. But mainly because I saw too much in her eyes.

 

“I could never do that.”

 

I don’t specify exactly what it is I couldn’t do. Stop loving. Stop caring. Work in “New Age” therapy. Forget Finn. Relieve myself of the guilt and responsibility I feel. And Lexa simply doesn’t ask.

 

“Then you put the people you care about in danger. Of you. Of the past. And the pain will never go away. The dead are gone, Clarke…”

 

My chest feels stricken with that pain as I look up once more to meet her gaze before she continues.

 

“…and the living are hungry.”

 

After a moment she rises and walks away, leaving me to take in everything she has said.

 

 

 

_______________________________________#_________________________________________

The days that follow seem to rush by. I go to check in on Lexa and her sister whenever I can. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we don’t. She doesn’t mention that day between us or the conversation we had, and neither do I. What is there to say?

 

Raven and I slowly begin to talk about Finn, our memories of him, those shared and others that we’ve had only for ourselves. It isn’t exactly therapy, but in its own way it is healing. We also talk about Lexa, about what I’ve come to know of her. And we talk about me.

 

Raven now thinks she’s an expert and I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad.

 

Today when I visit Lexa, she isn’t there. Nor is Anya, for that matter. I find that Anya has been released and I’m immediately awash with regret.

 

Days go by and I feel listless and lost. Seeing Lexa has become routine and somehow just being around her makes everything better. Clearer. Right.

 

It takes several more days and nearly half a bottle of wine to call her. To use the number on the card she gave me seemingly ages ago.

 

My fingers seem to tremble and several times I misdial until I finally get it right and the ring stretches across the expanse of space between us. Traveling through black wires like magic, like hope. I imagine her looking at her phone, wondering who it is, debating not answering it. If she doesn’t then I’ll take it as a sign that…

 

“Hello?”

 

Her voice sounds even sexier over the phone. Breathier. The simple syllables made sensual in that way only she can make anything sound. And maybe I’m imagining it, but she sounds hopeful too.

 

“Why haven’t I been able to get you out of my head?”

 

I meant to say hello too, or something witty. Kind. Ask how Anya is. But the wine is making my words come out all wrong as if my thoughts are turned inside out, and for some reason I’m still drinking it.

 

“Clarke?”

 

My name from her lips sounds like desire, and I feel it between my thighs. Or maybe it’s the heat of wine. Maybe it’s both. Maybe up is down and down is up and I have truly lost all control.

 

Raven would be proud.

 

I moan, literally moan, low and throaty as I rest my head against the back of the couch, rim of the glass against my lips and words slurring.

 

“Even the way you say my name drives me crazy. You did this on purpose. You told me I wouldn’t… I couldn’t get you out of my head. And I thought I could, but then… Then! You show up at the exact hospital I work in. Coincidence?”

 

There is a pause before she deadpans, “No, I made sure my sister could be shot several blocks away because I was that desperate to run into you again.”

 

I laugh. I don’t mean to. It just slips out. Escaping, building, until I’m doubling over with it, hyperventilating in laughter. The tears are unexpected but I don’t try to stop them now and I’m hiccupping, body releasing shuddering sighs.

 

“Clarke, are you drunk?”

 

“Drunk is a harsh word. I prefer healthily intoxicated.”

 

A pause. “Take some aspirin and sleep it off. Is there someone you can call?”

 

“You. I wanted to call you.”

 

There is a soft sigh, and this time I swear I can feel the longing in it, longing that’s mirrored in my own heart and body. How can one person make me feel this way? A whirlwind of sensation and emotion.

 

It shouldn’t be possible. She shouldn’t be possible.

 

“Clarke, she begins, but I don’t give her time to refuse me, to harden her heart. I’ve kept both of us waiting for too long and I’m sick to death of it.

 

“You told me that the dead are gone and the living are hungry. I didn’t know what that mean, but… I do now. I can’t hide behind other people anymore, or my fear, or my guilt. And I’m hungry, Lexa. So hungry.” My voice becomes a pleading, breathless whine, despite all intent not to. “I didn’t know how much I was starving until you.”

 

Another pause. This one seems to stretch on and on until finally she responds and I can hear the thick grate of arousal, need in her voice.

 

“Where are you?”

                                                                      *** 

I’m on edge until she arrives, downing another glass of wine and attempting to straighten my hair, though I only succeed in mussing it further.

 

The doorbell ringing sends me into a state of panic, but my feet don’t need guidance to carry me –albeit clumsily- to the front door and my hands –though trembling- need no help to unlock and open the door. And she’s there. In black. Hair windblown and wild with waves, those beautiful emerald pools I wish to drown in, dark with wariness and hope. Hope. Desire. Black and rich like the silk she wears.

 

Her lips part, but I reach out to curl fingers around the collar of her leather jacket to pull her inside, skin covered in goosebumps from the cold and anticipation. She’s so warm that the sigh is expelled before I can stop it, muffled only by her lips meeting mine.

 

This won’t be like the last time. We can both feel it. Endless night encompassed in a tumultuous storm as our bodies collide like the force of thunder, and lightening sizzles over our skin, white hot and purifying, electrifying as our hands roam and fumble. Hers move straight to the bare mounds of my ass, kneading and grasping as we crash into the wall of the foyer so hard that the photos tremble on the walls in their frames and a couple crash to the ground.

 

I’m not sure we closed the door and as my core pulls tight, arousal pooling and dampening my thighs in obvious indication how much her very touch sets me aflame, I don’t really care. I don’t care who might see me impatiently yanking at her jacket before her strong fingers find my wrists to pin me against the wall, trapped between it and her body as her breath washes over my skin and her lips explore.

 

“Lexa,” I whisper her name in fervent prayer for salvation and she gives it, wholly.

 

We leave clothing in a trail leading to the den, because my bedroom seems too far away and I need her so badly that seconds longer and I might come undone, implode within myself in a volatile and beautifully destructive patter just from the teasing of her lips on my collarbone and her teeth nipping at sensitive flesh.

 

The glow of the fireplace where cedar burns to cast the room in warmth seems to dance across her skin in sensual plays of light and shadow. And it seems that I am light and shadow too. My pale skin against hers, our breasts crushed against each other’s, accepting each other’s breaths as we fall upon the floor in a heap of limbs and heat.

 

I am on my stomach and her body covers mine, wet heat melding against the plush swells of my ass while her hands multitask, one cupping the mound of my left breast, flesh spilling over her slender fingers, and the other deftly seeks the center of my own desire, hot and dripping and so ready. There is no need to tease or stir, or ease me into it. We have one goal and that is to sate the hunger, to find that place that lies behind the veil, just out of reach.

 

A place of completion, where two lost souls no longer need to wander.

 

She spreads and stokes the fire, inciting ravenous flames that scorch and burn from the inside out as her breaths escape in ragged pants against my ear, and my own whimpers of pleasure fill the silence. My skin is slick with her arousal, my own, as she finds her pleasure in me and brings my own careening to the surface while we move wantonly as one.

 

When Lexa slips inside me I am already falling, or maybe it’s soaring. I am riding a paradox while my eyes roll back and she whispers for me to give in to her, to let her have me. Over and over even as her own body tenses and her own breaths seem to cease, replaced with cries of ecstasy.

 

We are shaking and trembling as if the world beneath us is quaking and falling away, crumbling to pieces while we fall deep into the abyss.

 

The fire has turned to simmering embers as lie later in a mess of sweaty limbs, breaths heavy, and the atmosphere is thick with the smell of sex and perspiration. There is a pleasant soreness between my thighs, and my veins still hum with the rush of several orgasms. But it’s my heart I notice most of all. There is no longer an ache there.

 

I think we’re both afraid to speak, afraid of what might happen if either of us ruins this moment with words, but there is something I have to say.

 

“I don’t want this to be it.”

 

There. The words are out there. Hanging in the air, waiting with bated breaths to see what Lexa will make of them.

 

I am prepared to argue that I won’t look for an excuse this time. I won’t allow her to think it’s the wine or the afterglow that’s making me say I want to see where this goes. That I don’t understand how or why, but I think my heart has already begun to love her and I want to discover everything it knows that I don’t. I want to know her in the way that my body seems to. Taste her dreams with my mind’s tongue, the way I taste her physically, even now.

 

I don’t want this to just be sex.

 

“The moment I saw you that day, I knew I didn’t want that to be it. Before I touched you, kissed you,” her voice is soft as she caresses my side, leaving warmth in the wake of her touch. “I started working at Black Silk as a way to… I don’t know. Help people while I was helping myself, I guess. After Costia, I didn’t know if I could ever feel again. Pleasure is simple. Automatic. But intimacy… And then there was you, and it was like my soul rose to see the sun again. I looked at you, Clarke, and I saw the sky.”

 

I can feel myself melting, drowning in her words, and I have no desire to ever rise for air again. Lexa felt as though she’d seen the sky, and I’d felt as though I had come to the ground for the first time after spending my life stifled in a cage of metal, floating aimlessly in the dark of space. Orbiting around the beauty of a world I could only watch at a distance and dream of, but never be a part of.

 

But she isn’t finished.

 

“After you left that day, I quit, you know?”

 

Surprise filters through me as I move to prop myself up on my elbow so that our gazes can meet and her eyes search my face, gauging my reaction to her words.

 

“You did?”

 

“Mhm. There was no longer a point. Even if you’d never called and fate hadn’t brought us together again, I couldn’t continue having felt what it was like to feel.”

 

I draw my lower lip between my teeth as I trace fingertips over her beautiful face.

 

“So, this isn’t it?” I ask tentatively.

 

She smiles and shakes her head, “No, Clarke. This is only the beginning. I want to see more of the sky.”

 

My smile is luminous as I lean forward and capture her lips, reveling in this moment and her. We talk for hours, discovering things, discovering each other, and falling in love.

 

Black Silk brought us together, but something much stronger bound us together.

 

Love is funny that way.     


End file.
